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by calcetineys



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, M/M, POV Outsider, shamelessly based on a youtube video series, yo something with very little angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2019-09-22
Packaged: 2020-10-25 21:56:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20731388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calcetineys/pseuds/calcetineys
Summary: The idea is to go in blind, andyet-





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**Author's Note:**

> Like the tag said, this is shamelessly based on Cut's Blind(folded) Blind Date | Truth or Drink series on YouTube. 
> 
> If you haven't seen it, I recommend it (I would link it but how does that work?). Very entertaining, and also, it'll give a visual for this story.

“Who’s he partnered with?”  


Hayden glances up from her tablet to find Theo next to her, staring in front of them. She’s not sure why he’s even here, if he never wants to participate, but she follows his line of sight to the young men standing in the waiting area, talking with their heads bent together.  


“Who, Scott?” she asks, though she has the feeling she shouldn't waste her limited time before shooting starts entertaining Theo. “He’s with someone named Isaac-”  


“No, the taller one,” Theo interrupts.  


“And how do you know I wasn’t talking about the taller one?” Hayden asks, going back to her tablet.  


“Does he _look_ like a ‘Scott’ to you?”  


“No, _Scott_ looks like a ‘Scott’ and _you_-” Hayden says, “Look like you’re wasting my time.”  


Theo holds his hands up in a gesture that’s meant to be surrender, and he grins as he says, “I’ll make it up to you.”  


He casts a very meaningful look in the direction of Scott and his friend, and Hayden can already feel a headache coming on.  


“What are the odds you’ll ‘make it up to me’ by just going home?” she offers.  


“Well, I think you know the answer to that,” Theo says. “I also think that if you took a moment to think about it like a producer, you’ll realize that having me on camera will give you better content than any of your other participants.”  


And _that_, Hayden’s forced to admit as she looks at him looking at Stiles, is a very good point.  
-

“Scott, you’re up next,” Hayden says, handing over a blindfold. “And Stiles-”  


“You want me to stand off screen and heckle, right?” Stiles ask. “I’ve seen these videos, I know how to do it tastefully.”  


Hayden takes a deep breathe and reminds herself that content really is key. “No, that’s my job. I was going to ask if you wanted to be a participant.”  


Scott and Stiles both give her surprised looks, though Scott’s is quick to turn into one of excitement.  


“You should do it, man. It’ll be fun.”  


“_Fun?"_ Stiles asks. “_Normal_ dating is not fun. Double blind dating can in no way be fun.”  


“Well, I’m having fun,” Scott says, leaning back in his chair and grinning at his friend. “And I don't think you're using the term ‘double blind’ right.”  


Stiles elects to ignore him, turning back to Hayden to say, “Look, I didn’t even take your personality test, there’s no way you could know how to set me up, especially on such short notice-”  


“Actually,” Hayden cuts in, making a point to check the time on her tablet. “We have you in the background of Scott’s initial interview, tastefully heckling, as you call it, so I think we have a pretty good impression of your personality.”  


“Well, you can’t be very good at your job if you think that’s all there is to learn about a person-“  


“Look,” Hayden interrupts, deciding that she doesn’t feel bad for out right lying because Stiles’ heckling could have been a hell of a lot more tasteful. Or quiet. “One of our participants never showed up, I have a guy with no date, half an hour until we need to shoot, and no one else in our alternates roster is compatible enough to go on camera with him. Help me out here.”  


But Stiles just gapes at her. “So you want me to go on a _literal_ blind date with a guy whose only possible match didn’t even want to show up for said date? Sorry if you’re not selling me on this.”  


He sounds distinctly not sorry, and Hayden takes another deep breath, trying to decide if she cares enough to think of a better argument or if she just wants to say fuck it, and tell Theo to stop being so damn dramatic about everything.  


Scott ends up making the decision for her.  


“Look, man, I know you’re nervous about dating, it’s stressful, I get it. But it’s also kind of great. Meeting new people, going new places, making friends even if it doesn’t work out-” Scott trails off when he notices how Stiles and Hayden are staring at him, because wow, his dating experience is _not_ universal.  


“Okay, forget all of that then,” Scott says. “Think about it like this: you can’t see him, he can’t see you, that takes like half the pressure off automatically. And the whole thing is so weird, sitting in the dark talking to a person you’ve never met, that it’s actually kind of ridiculous. As in, you don’t have to take it too seriously." 

"Scott-" 

"Plus!" Scott goes on. "You read questions off of cards, so you don’t have to worry about making small talk, and you have a save card if you don’t want to talk about something. In the form of free alcohol. Where else are you going to find a date where you’re encouraged to sit in the dark, get drunk, and not have to think about what to say?”  


“What do you think I usually like in a date?” Stiles asks, a bit incredulous, but Hayden notes that his shoulders relax a little.  


“Well, not this stuff. That’s my point,” Scott says. “I’m just saying that the things that normally stress you out don’t matter here. And you never have to see this person again if you don’t want to. This whole thing might as well be happening in another world, and when we leave this studio, we can pretend it never happened.”  


Hayden’s not going to remind them that this is all going to be recorded until she absolutely has to, to get Stiles to sign a release form. She’s also not going to question how much of a terrible person show business is making her. 

Instead she watches Stiles deliberate, which mainly consists of bouncing his knee and biting his lip before he sighs and says, “Screw it, give me a blindfold.”  


-  


Scott and Isaac make, despite Theo’s earlier predictions, for adorable content, so at least Hayden will have _something_ good for her video.  


Her confidence is waning as one of her stagehands leads a blindfolded Stiles to the table, and he still manages to bump into it hard enough to set the bottles rattling. At least Scott remains consistently charming, running up on screen to give Stiles’ shoulder a squeeze and tell him, “You got this, man.”  


She’ll have to find a way to edit that in, even though Theo’s not at the table yet.  


“So uh,” Stiles says to the empty chair in front of him, “I’m Stiles.”  


He has his hand held out for a handshake for a long moment before he turns his head in Hayden’s general direction and says, “He’s not sitting there yet, is he.”  


“He’s walking on set now,” Hayden says. Stiles still lets his head fall onto the tabletop.  


“Alright guys,” Hayden says, deciding to get this over with. “Go ahead and introduce yourselves.”  


Stiles sits up and once more offers his hand. “Stiles.”  


“Nice to meet you,” Theo tells him, finding his hand. “I’m Theo.”  


“Right, nice to meet you too,” Stiles says, then says nothing more.  


“You guys wanna start with a shot?” Hayden suggests.  


“Yes!” Stiles says, hands on the bottles. They clatter together again and Theo reaches over to steady them, annoyingly subtle in brushing against Stiles’ fingers as he pulls one of the bottles back to his side of the table. 

Unsurprisingly, he doesn’t overfill his glass, and more unsurprising still, Stiles does.  


“Ah, okay, we can just ignore that,” he mutters, fingers skimming over the spilt liquid before he just mops it up with his shirt sleeve. “Cheers?”  


“Cheers,” Theo says, and drinks.  


“So,” Stiles says, setting his own glass down. “You want to start, or should I?”  


Theo smiles, and Hayden, knowing that he knows the order of the questions, is not surprised when he tells Stiles to go first.  


“What is your type,” Stiles slips his blindfold up enough to read. “Be specific.”  


“Cute, definitely,” Theo says. “Maybe a little mean. That’s definitely… a good combination. How about you?”  


“Confidence is always nice,” Stiles says. “Someone who knows what they want, and goes after that. Uh, next question?”  


Hayden rolls her eyes, because of course Theo wanted to be the one to ask this question.  


“Am I attractive?” Theo reads, “You can only use your sense of touch to decide.”  


“Um,” Stiles says, his fingers tapping on the table. “Alright, I’ll just…”  


He lifts his hands, inching forward until he makes contact with Theo’s shoulders, grips his sweater a bit tightly, patting up to his neck and chin. 

“Okay, there’s your face. Uh, it, well, it’s solid. Nice jaw, um, oh, sorry, that’s your mouth, I guess. Nose, cheeks, ears. You are not shy with the hair product, I see.”  


Theo’s grinning through all of this, and grins even wider when Stiles brings his hands back down to his shoulders, prodding at his arms and chest. Clearing his throat, he says, “Um, yeah. No further questions.”  


He retreats back to his side of the table, not asking if Theo wants to answer the same question for himself, and Theo doesn’t ask either. Not that he needs to, Hayden thinks.  


“True or false,” Stiles reads the next card. “Relationships require one hundred percent honesty.”  


“If you don’t want to be honest with your partner, then what’s the point?” Theo asks, leaning into the table.  


Stiles doesn’t answer for a moment, before he says, “Well, it never seems to work out when you aren’t, so.”  


If it weren’t for the blindfolds, it would seem like they were staring at each other. As it is, Stiles pats a hand in the general area of the stack of questions and says, “Your turn.”  


Theo takes the next card and says, “Be honest, what’s one thing you’re insecure about.”  


Stiles is quiet for a moment, then he huffs out a laugh and says, “You know what, I’ll save us some time and just take a shot.”  


Theo frowns at that, not a frown Hayden is used to seeing on his face. He reaches his hands out, meeting Stiles’ at the bottles, no attempt at pretense this time, and he says, “You can take whatever time you need.”  


Again, Stiles stares though he can’t see. There’s a quieter sort of deliberation now, one without bouncing his leg or wearing on his lip. Theo’s hands stay against his, even as Stiles moves them back to the tabletop and says, “I can be- I _am_… a lot to deal with. And I haven’t found a lot of people who can- who _want_ to deal with… that. Me.”  


The words themselves could be considered vague, but usually people just talk about some physical feature they don’t love about themselves and call it a day, so Hayden understands the way Stiles heaves a heavy breath and slumps a bit further into the table. 

His hands shift slightly, turning more into Theo’s and he’s quiet, the whole studio is quiet, and he startles more than just Hayden when he blurts out, “You know, some mutuality would make this a little less-”  


“I have to be the best at everything,” Theo tells him, and that’s not really news to Hayden. “Not to bring up the whole, ‘second place is the first to lose’, but it’s not wrong. But mostly it's that… I’ve let that take up a lot of my time. Let it get in the way of things. And I wish I hadn’t.”  


That, though… that is news to Hayden.  


They sit in silence for a long moment, looking at each other without seeing, before Stiles clears his throat, his head starting a halted turn toward the camera before he asks Theo, “So who goes now?”  


“You.”  


“Right, well,” Stiles says, pulling his hands back to take the next card. He lets out a choked sound as he reads the question to himself, and his wince is visible even behind the blindfold as he says aloud, “On the count of three, we both say the amount of times we masturbate in a week.”  


Theo scoffs out a laugh and says. “Ready? One, two, three-”  


“Six.”  


“Three.”  


“Alright, I know that’s actually not that much of a difference, number wise, but it actually kind of _is_,” Stiles says."I mean, do you never just get bored?" 

“I try to find ways to occupy my time,” Theo says.  


“Uh, yeah, me too, and yet -“ Stiles says, and shakes his head, missing Theo’s amused expression. “Alright, you go.”  


Theo reads, “What would your reaction be if someone hit on me during our date?” And he seems entirely too entertained by that idea.  


“You seem to like that scenario,” Stiles observes in a dry voice.  


“Well, if we’re being honest.”  


"Well, if we're being honest," Stiles says, eye roll clear. He bites his lip before he asks in a quieter voice, “What if _I_ didn’t like that scenario?”  


“Then I would handle it,” Theo says, more seriously. “And _that_ is what would be fun, to make it clear who I’m there with." 

He shifts closer, fabric rustling as his chest presses into the side of the table. And he goes on, "And if I’m with you, then I’m _with_ you, Stiles.”  


It takes Stiles a moment to react, and he can’t really be blamed, because this isn’t how even Hayden expected Theo to behave, and she gets the distinct feeling that this whole shoot is only going to keep getting even more off track.  


“And, just so you know,” Theo goes on. “When the situation is reversed, I think I might like that even more.”  


Stiles turns toward the camera and mouths _"‘When.’"_ His eye roll is not at all deterred by the blindfold. Neither is the red in his cheeks when Theo goes on, “That would be even more fun, to show people who _you’re_ with.”  


Despite his skepticism of this scenario ever happening, that thought must still be in Stiles’ mind as he picks up the next card and mutters, “Ah… fuck.”  


He turns his head in the direction of the bottles, his hand twitching toward them, and it’s not clear whether he’s considering taking a shot to brace himself, or to avoid the question all together.  


Theo seems content to wait out his deliberating, only saying quietly, “It’s up to you.”  


Stiles’ head swings around toward Theo, mouth parting, and it’s clear enough that he realizes that Theo knows what this question says. He makes a grab for a bottle, hand wrapped around the neck for a second before his face turns in Theo’s direction. 

The studio goes quiet again as they wait, and finally, Stiles lets the bottle go, breathing out “Fuck it,” before saying out loud, “Will you make out wi-”  


“Yes,” Theo says, already out of his chair and half way across the table. 

Hayden’s surprised, though she probably shouldn’t be, at how coordinated Theo makes kissing blindfolded look, how he easily finds Stiles in the dark, one hand curling around his side, the other at his jaw, and there’s no bumping teeth or knocking foreheads as he finds Stiles’ mouth.  


He pulls Stiles halfway out of his seat, the table the only awkward part of the equation as it hinders their way towards each other, bottles rattling as Theo brings him closer. Stiles pulls back enough to turn his head in their direction, but Theo mutters, sounding almost breathless, “Don’t worry about that,” before pulling him back in.  


Stiles lets out a surprised noise at that, but otherwise doesn’t seem put out, hands gripping Theo’s sweater again, and not from nerves this time.  


“I know he didn’t actually get to the part about this only going on for one minute, but uh, it’s been more than a minute,” one of the stagehands tells Hayden, and she blinks, deciding that maybe this is going to turn out fine after all.  


“Okay, we’re good!” Hayden calls out, but neither of the men on camera seem to be paying attention, even when she repeats herself and no, it looks like she spoke too soon.  


“Dude!” Scott exclaims, equal parts thrilled and amused, and his voice seems to be enough to startle Stiles back to reality. The bottles rattle again as he jerks back, though not enough that Theo loses hold of him.  


What they’re supposed to do next is sit back down, read the next question that asks, “Would you go on a second date with me?”, take off their blind folds and answer the closing questions, and then maybe, _maybe_ if they really couldn’t help it, they could go back to kissing each other if they really wanted to do that with people watching. Because apparently neither of them mind that. 

She’ll admit that she doesn't mind it either, because she knows good content when she sees it.  


She doesn’t even mind when Theo leans in one more time, giving Stiles a kiss that’s much shorter and softer than expected, deliberately brushing the tip of his nose against Stiles' before he leans back.  


What she does mind is that the next question he asks is “You wanna get out of here?”  


And Stiles- she might have felt bad for him if he weren’t standing there, mouth still open, trying to decide what to say and saying the _wrong thing_ (in Hayden’s mind at least): “Okay.”  


And Hayden never claimed to be a very good friend to Theo, so his bright smile as he pulls his blindfold off and tosses it onto the table doesn’t do much to ease her exasperation. But it’s not like he’d listen if she told him to finish his date the way it was _planned_, because it was planned that way for a _reason_.  


But of course, this is going the way Theo probably planned it. He’s already led Stiles out of frame by the time Scott calls out to him, “Dude, you might want to take the blindfold off now!”  


“Oh, right,” Stiles says, stopping long enough to shove the material up to his forehead before throwing it back in the direction of the table. He doesn’t make it, but he doesn’t seem too concerned either. 

Hayden doesn’t bother to watch them leave; the camera crew is handling that just fine. She’ll have plenty of time to see it in editing. 

_Plenty_ of time, she tells herself as she wonders how she’s supposed to edit together a cohesive video with the standard awkward, flirty dates that the rest of her participants gave her with this intense, strangely earnest, off-the-script date Theo and Stiles just had. 

Thinking about that leads her up to the table, and she grabs one of the bottles that they barely drank from and pours herself a shot. The camera’s pointed back at her by the time she sets the bottle down and she says, “Well, at least that worked out for _someone."_  


She throws back the alcohol and her crew doesn’t do a very good job hiding their laughter.  
-  


She doesn't waste her time trying to get their footage to fit with the other participants, just posts it as a stand alone video. It ends up becoming the channel’s most popular, but she isn’t telling Theo that. 

He’s annoyingly happy as it is these days.


End file.
